Bail Organa

Bail Organa represented Alderaan, an ancient and prestigious Core World, in the Galactic Senate during the Republic’s final years. As the Separatist Crisis worsened, Organa became known as an influential member of the Loyalist faction in the Senate, supporting Supreme Chancellor Palpatine.

Despite his support for Palpatine, Organa hoped the galaxy would avoid war. Visibly frustrated, he stood beside the Supreme Chancellor as units of the Grand Army of the Republic mustered on Coruscant, preparing to battle the Separatists on many worlds. Uncertain and dangerous times lay ahead for the galaxy.

Organa balanced his support for the Republic military with work to aid refugees and bring relief to war-torn worlds. One mission went badly awry, leaving the Alderaan Senator trapped on Christophsis by a Separatist blockade. A rescue mission launched by Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker freed him.

Undeterred by his close call, Organa sought to bring much-need supplies to beleaguered resistance fighters on Ryloth. With Republic supply lines stretched to the breaking point, he appeared to Toydaria’s King Katuunko to offer his planet as a staging ground for the relief effort.

Organa’s appeal aroused the ire of the Trade Federation, which warned that Toydaria risked a possible Separatist invasion by assisting the Republic. Organa used a bit of political subterfuge and a distraction created by Jar Jar Binks to get the convoy through without endangering Toydaria’s neutrality.

Organa gained allies in his effort to slow the Republic’s rush to war and check Palpatine’s growing powers, working with Chandrila’s Mon Mothma and becoming a mentor to Naboo’s Padmé Amidala. He invited Padmé to a conference on Alderaan intended to address the refugee crisis.

Padmé’s speech was disrupted by an assassination attempt made by the bounty hunter Aurra Sing. Organa urged Padmé to return to Coruscant, but reluctantly agreed to his fellow Senator’s plan to remain and turn the tables on the assassin.

Organa was one of the Republic Senators taken hostage when the bounty hunter Cade Bane pulled off a daring raid on the Senate Building, bartering his captive politicians for Republic prisoner Ziro the Hutt.

When Padmé’s secret mission to Separatist space resulted in a peace proposal from the Separatist Senate, Organa supported her call to open negotiations and joined her in opposition to a bill to deregulate the banks.

After the negotiations failed, Organa and Padmé used all their political skills to rally opposition to the bank deregulation bill, worried that the war effort was forcing the Republic to neglect basic services for its citizens.

With Senators facing intimidation for their political positions, Organa agreed to make a key speech arguing against the bill. But after he was assaulted and injured, Padmé had to step in to make the argument in his stead. She succeeded and the bill was defeated.

Intimidation was only the beginning, however: After Organa and his allies opposed increased military production, their friend Onaconda Farr was poisoned. Organa and Padmé sought to discover who was behind the plot.

Organa and his allies continued to seek a peaceful solution to the war, meeting with Separatist Senators on the non-aligned planet of Mandalore.

When Senator Rush Clovis sought Republic approval for his appointment to run the InterGalactic Banking Clan, Organa questioned him sternly, mindful of the Scipio Senator’s previous entanglements with Separatist leaders.

As the Clone Wars wound down, Organa and Mothma began to seek out other Senators worried that Palpatine would refuse to surrender his wartime powers. Meeting in secret, they planned resistance to his rule. These meetings would help lay the foundations for the Rebel Alliance.

Amid reports that the Jedi had tried to take over the Republic, Organa traveled to the Jedi Temple and found the ancient structure in flames. He retreated after watching clone troopers gun down a Padawan, and decided he had to save any surviving Jedi that might return and be captured or killed.

Organa picked up Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi, both survivors of Order 66, and returned to Coruscant. While his Jedi friends sought answers at the Temple, Organa listened grimly to Palpatine’s declaration of the First Galactic Empire.

Yoda’s confrontation with Palpatine ended in failure, and Organa rescued the Jedi Master. On Polis Massa, they watched as medical droids delivered Padmé Amidala’s twins – the son and daughter of Anakin Skywalker – before their mother’s death.

Organa, Obi-Wan and Yoda decided to separate the twins, with Obi-Wan watching over Luke on Tatooine while Bail and his wife Breha adopted Leia and raised her as their own. The Empire had won, but hope was not extinguished.

Organa returned to Alderaan with Leia, and served for years in the Imperial Senate, attempting to shield the people of the galaxy from the worst Imperial abuses. He groomed his adopted daughter to take his place in the Senate and assist the Rebellion he and Mothma were nurturing in secret.

Organa was always on the lookout for people whose talents might assist the rebel cause – such as Hera Syndulla’s cell of Lothal rebels, whose capabilities R2-D2 and C-3PO witnessed firsthand during one mission.

Organa reached out to the Lothal rebels after their successful raid in the Mustafar system, introducing them to one of his key agents: Fulcrum, the former Padawan Ahsoka Tano.

Bail and Breha died when Grand Moff Tarkin used the Death Star’s superlaser to incinerate Alderaan, a stunning demonstration of Imperial might intended to snuff out the fires of rebellion. But Leia continued the fight – and the martyred Organas became potent symbols of the struggle to restore freedom to the galaxy.